A Quote by Serena Williams
I'm an athlete and I'm black, and a lot of black athletes go broke. I do not want to become a statistic, so maybe I overcompensate. But I'm paranoid. Oprah told me a long time ago, 'You sign every check. Never let anyone sign any checks.'
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I go out and I meet people after the show, I take every picture that they ask for, I sign every autograph that they want. You know, there's merchandise for sale, but people don't have to buy anything. I'll sign their tickets, I'll sign whatever they want me to, I'll get a picture with them and I'll stay there with them as long as they want.
I don't sign every check anymore, but I have my checks, my balances. I like the people I work with very much, but I check on them.
When you're a 20-something-year-old athlete and you're getting a six-figure check every week, you're not thinking about next week. You're not thinking, 'I'm going to be broke,' or 'I'm going to need another job.' But I'll tell you, there are a lot of broke athletes out there - I know plenty - and I didn't want to end up as one.
Adults who loved and knew me, on many occasions sat me down and told me that I was black. As you could imagine, this had a profound impact on me and soon became my truth. Every friend I had was black; my girlfriends were black. I was seen as black, treated as black, and endured constant overt racism as a young black teenager.
There's a long history and a pattern of Black athletes - and Black people, period - being told to shut up and accept whatever it is they're given.
I got to meet Hulk Hogan. He took a liking to me because of my size. He saw that I was a good athlete and could move. He told me at the time, he says, 'You got a big dollar sign in your forehead, kid,' and I said, 'Well, please show it to me, because I'm broke.'
I remember Kenny Anderson. He's got these huge stacks of Fed Ex envelopes. They were super-packed and he'd open it up and it would be all checks. He was always signing his own checks. He would always call me Kid.' He'd say, Kid, always remember to sign your own checks. Don't allow anybody to sign your checks.'
Seven out of 10 black faces you see on television are athletes. The black athlete carries the image of the black community. He carries the cross, in a way, until blacks make inroads in other dimensions.
Shoot, me, if I was going to go to war and you told me I could have Keith Lee, I'll sign up on that one. And you told me I could have the freaking UFC madman Matt Riddle - he's like the new Goldberg - I'll sign up on that one too. I love the guys.
Have I had experiences by other people identifying me as black and behaving towards me as black? Yes. Just for as long as maybe somebody who was born categorised as black? No.
The sign of vigour, the sign of life, the sign of hope, the sign of health, the sign of everything that is good, is strength. As long as the body lives, there must be strength in the body, strength in the mind, [and strength] in the hand.
White people scare the crap out of me. I have never been attacked by a black person, never been evicted by a black person, never had my security deposit ripped off by a black landlord, never had a black landlord, never been pulled over by a black cop, never been sold a lemon by a black car salesman, never seen a black car salesman, never had a black person deny me a bank loan, never had a black person bury my movie, and I've never heard a black person say, 'We're going to eliminate ten thousand jobs here - have a nice day!'
I never heard of anyone saying they want to deploy their capital wisely and go buy a sports franchise. What you want to do is just not lose money. You see, I don't have to work anymore. I tell people I don't have a real job. On the other hand, I learned long ago that you can't go broke if you turn a profit.
When a country doesn't respect Black lives, maybe it doesn't deserve to be entertained by Black athletes.
Obama wouldn't have been voted president if he weren't black. Somebody asked me over the weekend why does somebody earn a lot of money have a lot of money, because she's black. It was Oprah. No, it can't be. Yes, it is. There's a lot of guilt out there, show we're not racists, we'll make this person wealthy and big and famous and so forth.... If Obama weren't black he'd be a tour guide in Honolulu or he'd be teaching Saul Alinsky constitutional law or lecturing on it in Chicago.
In Portugal, seeing a black cat is a bad sign; it's bad luck. But they tell me if it crosses from left to right, it's good luck. But I don't like black cats!
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